Around five weeks after the earthquake in south-east Turkey, at least 14 people died in floods. Five people were still missing on Wednesday, Turkish Interior Minister Süleyman Soylu said.
In the province of Sanliurfa, which borders Syria alone, twelve people lost their lives. Two people died in the neighboring province of Adiyaman. According to the DHA news agency, there were also floods in the south-eastern Turkish metropolis of Diyarbakir. The catastrophe hits a region that was shaken by severe earthquakes just five weeks ago.
Flooded hospital emergency room
The governor called on residents to remain in their homes or to go to safe areas if necessary. Schools were closed for a day. According to the DHA news agency, in Sanliurfa not only residential buildings were flooded, but also the emergency room of a hospital. The patients had been evacuated.
In the neighboring province of Adiyaman, about 110 kilometers to the north, in the district of Tut, according to the Turkish Interior Minister Süleyman Soylu, a container house in which a family was housed was washed away. A person died in the process. According to the media, four other residents of the container are missing.
Soylu called on Adiyaman residents to stay away from river beds. Already the day before, heavy rain had caused problems for the people in the earthquake region. For example, water entered tents in Iskenderun, Hatay province. More than 48,000 people lost their lives in the earthquake on February 6 and many aftershocks in Turkey alone. After that, hundreds of thousands of people in the region were homeless and accommodated in emergency shelters such as tents.
Dramatic Scenes
As recordings by the broadcaster Haber Global showed, the masses of water tore cars with them and damaged roads and bridges. Videos showed people swimming to safety. A report by broadcaster Habertürk showed how local residents rescued a man and a child with a rope from a flooded street in the city of Sanliurfa.
For the next two days, the Turkish civil protection authority AFAD expected further heavy rains in the region and warned local residents of further storms and floods.
